It’s the question on every Canadian’s lips– or at least every Canadian shut out of affordable housing thanks to the market’s obscene price escalation under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Does the re-elected prime minister and his coterie of home-owning and house-flipping MPs actually give a damn about whether housing is affordable for anyone who isn’t already wealthy? If his latest cabinet appointments are any indication, the answer is a resounding “no.”
On Tuesday morning, Trudeau named his incoming cabinet, including a novel new position titled the “Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion.” If this seems like an absurdly broad and meaningless title, that’s because it is. It’s as though, after ticking off all the boxes the Liberals actually care about, some lowly intern raised their hand and meekly reminded the prime minister he made a few promises about housing during the campaign and should probably feign a passing interest in the matter. So, naturally, a feel-good, mean-nothing title was conjured out of thin air.
While other cabinet posts are either hyper-targeted or group together closely related issues, haphazardly tossing together the biggest buzzwords of the day among young voters is hard to interpret any other way than yet another kick in the demographic’s face. Housing is massively important. Diversity and inclusion are massively important. It’s unclear how sticking one minister with two of the largest pressing issues of the day is a recipe for anything other than spinning the wheels of the status quo.
Most failing cabinet ministers from the 2019 election were politely ushered out of their positions, but the new minister of housing and diversity and inclusion is Ahmed Hussen, who already oversaw the housing file in his prior role as minister of families, children and social development. In his 2019 mandate letter , Hussen was tasked by Trudeau with responsibility for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the first-time home buyer incentive, and the national housing strategy. He was re-tasked with these jobs in a January 2021 supplementary mandate letter .
To recap for anyone behind on Canada’s continued housing hellscape, the CMHC continues to encourage massive housing debt, the first-time home buyer incentive recklessly stokes demand while simultaneously failing to achieve its purported purpose of levelling the real estate playing field, and the national housing strategy is a national joke, having managed to spend less than half its earmarked funding.
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